


Spoken For

by MayGlenn



Series: May's February Ficlet Challenge 2019 [18]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Dancing, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gen, Injury Recovery, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season 4 Alternate Intro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 14:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17851181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayGlenn/pseuds/MayGlenn
Summary: Yang was having trouble talking. To anyone. She made an effort with her dad, and could talk to people enough to be polite, but she just couldn’t seem to...connect. She was just—numb. Feeling was hard, feeling anything. She tried talking to her sister, but then Ruby had left on some mission. She would have tried talking to Blake, but then she left on a mission.Yang didn’t even feel like talking would actually help. She couldn’t even go ride her motorcycle or do anything for an adrenaline rush, not like this. She was just...a mess.





	Spoken For

Yang was having trouble talking. To anyone. She made an effort with her dad, and could talk to people enough to be polite, but she just couldn’t seem to... _connect_ . Or, care. She was aware she used to be a ray of sunshine, she still should be, it was in her _name_ , but it was just—hard now. It wasn’t even her missing arm, really, or how much it still hurt. She could deal with pain. Pain gave her a rush. It wasn’t even that she was away from school, or that Pyrrha was gone, or that she still saw Adam coming for her sometimes when she closed her eyes. She was just—numb. Feeling was hard, feeling anything.

She tried talking to her sister, but then Ruby had left on some mission. She would have tried talking to Blake, but then _she_ left on a mission. And Weiss...well, Weiss probably wouldn’t have been a good person to talk to, anyway. Yang didn’t even feel like talking would actually help. She couldn’t go ride her motorcycle or do anything for an adrenaline rush, not like this. She was just...a mess.

It couldn’t be the arm, because she had a new arm, new tech, built just for her, just waiting for her to put it on and train with. It was like she didn’t even want to be whole again—even while the world was still falling apart and she could be out there helping. What was up with that?

Yang was so engrossed in staring at the wall that she didn’t notice when she had a visitor. People were gentle with her, sometimes too gentle, so they just let her be quiet as long as she wanted. Whatever.

“Hi, Yang.”

The voice was Blake’s. Yang thought she should be happy about that, glad to see her, relieved, maybe, even jealous or mad that she hadn’t been here until now. But she didn’t actually feel any of those things, and just continued staring at the wall.

Luckily, if you wanted to just sit in silence with someone, Blake was a good choice, and so Blake waited, unbothered, even though Yang hadn’t said anything.

After what felt like an hour, and might have actually been an hour, because Blake was weirdly patient, when Yang was ready or just too impatient to deal with the silent treatment anymore, looked up. Blake was wearing a new top that showed off more skin and had this cool strappy neckline. Yang liked it, though she didn’t have enough in her to feel aroused by it, unfortunately. She wanted to be. That was lame. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Blake said.

They lapsed into silence again. This is what you get when you let the socially awkward one lead the conversation.

“I thought you were on a mission,” Yang managed, sounding slightly accusatory, though her heart wasn’t in it. “With Sun.”

“I was,” Blake said. “But I needed to see you.”

Yang huffed. “Well, I’m here.” _Can’t go on a mission with you, because getting a new arm and training with it sounds about as much fun as just—sitting here._

Was she deflecting? Yang Xiao Long did not deflect. She had many faults, and all of them were about being too honest, too confrontational. Her semblance wasn’t about deflecting, it was about absorbing. _Ugh. Pull yourself together, Yang._

Disgust with herself was at least _a_ feeling, and Yang rallied. “What did you need to see me for? Where’s Sun?”

“I... _wanted_ to see you,” Blake corrected, which kind of answered where Sun was.

(He was downstairs, laughing with their dad, Yang could hear him.)

“Even like this?” Yang asked. She was lopsided, unbalanced, with one sleeve tied in a knot over the stump, and wearing long pants and a long shirt like she wanted to cover up the rest of her body. But she didn’t want Blake feeling sorry for her.

“I wanted to see _you_. However,” Blake said.

“Fine,” Yang said, and shrugged with her good shoulder. “I’m not exactly at my best.”

Downstairs, her dad put on some music, or maybe a movie, and the sound of it filtered up to her room. It was some generic pop song like they played at the dance at Beacon—what felt like years ago. When Yang had had to force Blake to even show up, and made her save a dance for her.

Yang felt like a completely different person now.

“Will you dance with me?”

Yang blinked, and looked up again (of course she had defaulted back to staring at the wall), because Blake was standing now, holding out a hand. She must have been thinking along the same lines as Yang had, but…. “ _What_?”

“Will you dance with me?” Blake bit her lip while Yang watched. “Please?”

Maybe the tables _had_ turned. Yang stood up, though she wobbled a bit. Blake wrapped an arm around her waist and took her hand. The stump just—hung there. Blake didn’t have the faintest idea how to lead (being an older sister, Yang did), but she gave it an effort, and they shuffled awkwardly around the messy bedroom, kicking things out of the way as they went.

This seemed to make it easier for Blake to talk, at least, as she sighed. “I should never have left.”

Apparently it made it easier for Yang, too. Maybe moving around was helping? Yang was very new to depression. “You had to go after—you still should. He—”

“You can’t even say his _name_ , Yang, I never should have left you like that!”

Yang wasn’t going to argue with that. She pressed her face to Blake’s shoulder so she wouldn’t have to look at her. “I thought I was...defending your honor, or something, when I went after him. That if he was gone, you’d stop obsessing over him and...we could just…”

“We _are_ ,” Blake said, squeezing Yang’s hand and her waist. “Already.”

“He hurt you,” Yang said, and was surprised to find herself near tears. “I wanted to—”

“He hurt _you_ ,” Blake countered, and that was true enough. They danced a few more turns, and Yang felt more like crying, which was oddly, maybe, a step up. “We’ll stop him together.”

Yang nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and eventually they came to a stop, just holding each other in the middle of Yang’s bedroom.

“I think...I’m ready to try on the arm,” Yang said eventually. “Thanks for the dance.”

**Author's Note:**

> Eighteenth in the February Ficlet Challenge of 2019. The prompt was "Dancing." I'm also behind on watching RWBY, so let's say this is somewhere at the beginning of Volume 4.


End file.
